Network Configuration Manager Release 11.0 (Build 11000)

New Features & Enhancements

New Fluidic Webclient - Ultra-fast, API driven Fluidic user interface is ready to use. The new Fluidic webclient will become the default user interface for all new installations. However, users can switch to old UI at anytime in a single click.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5990)

New Features & Enhancements

Option to import Device Group has been included

List of devices can now be imported from a file to execute Custom Template

New Device Models Supported

Brocade Router

DLink DES 3200 Switch

Huawei NE40E-X3 Routers

Bug Fixes / Changes

User Audit for DeviceGroup update has been added

User Audit for User Details modification added

Multiple entries can be provided for single HostName/IPAddress in CustomTemplate file upload option.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5981)

Bug Fixes / Changes

Servlet based security issue fix.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5980)

New Features & Enhancements

Six more REST APIs introduced:

MANAGE - To manage a network device in Network Configuration Manager

UNMANAGE - To unmanage a network device

GET_DEVICE_COUNT - Returns the total number of managed devices count

GET_BACKUP_FAILED_COUNT - Returns the total number of backup failed devices at present

UPDATE_IPADDRESS - Updates the IP address of the given device with the latest

Administrators can now view the list of all SystemObject Identifiers in table view from 'Admin' tab.

Option to save configurations for backup before and after custom template execution

SSH and TELNET protocol support for Force10 E-Series switches

New Device Models Support

HP 5500 series Switch

PaloAlto Panorama Centralized Management console

Bug Fixes / Changes

In v5970, compliance pie-chart navigation from the home page dashboard threw errors. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of PaloAlto devices. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Cisco WLAN Controllers. This has now been fixed.

In v5970, reports exported as pdf did not cover all applicable devices. It was restricted to the number of devices in current page view. This has now been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5970)

New Features & Enhancements

Option to view the list of devices associated with any compliance rule. Reports can also be generated based on policies.

Option to synchronize system description and sysLocation details from the network device to Network Configuration Manager.

Custom templates can now automatically append hostname and timestamp ( for the files downloaded from the devices. This will help in pulling multiple context stack switch configuration information and store them as flat files under /tftp_files directory.

New REST API to add users

Option to send email notifications only on failure of database backup and export configuration operations.

Option to include information on who invoked backup of device configuration in the config change notification emails. This can be configured as part of defining configuration change management rule.

Telnet & SSH protocols can now be used for managing the configurations of Fortigate Version 3.x and VDOM 3.x

New Device Models Support:

Avocent ACS

Juniper WLAN controller

Pravail APS

Avocent Terminal

Cisco ASR Mobile Gateway

Bug Fixes & Changes:

Earlier, when generating a compliance report out of the custom reports, latest configuration data was not taken into account. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, database backup failure status was not properly updated in audit records. This has now been fixed.

When there were multiple SNMP profiles, devices discovery failed often. This has been fixed.

Earlier, in certain specific conditions, EOL report generation threw an error. This has been fixed.

Operators will henceforth not have the privilege to view/edit credentials and credential profiles.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Cisco WLC, Cisco Nexus and Nortel Switches. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Cisco WLAN controllers. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5970)

New Features & Enhancements

Option to view the list of devices associated with any compliance rule. Reports can also be generated based on policies.

Option to synchronize system description and sysLocation details from the network device to Network Configuration Manager.

Custom templates can now automatically append hostname and timestamp ( for the files downloaded from the devices. This will help in pulling multiple context stack switch configuration information and store them as flat files under /tftp_files directory.

New REST API to add users

Option to send email notifications only on failure of database backup and export configuration operations.

Option to include information on who invoked backup of device configuration in the config change notification emails. This can be configured as part of defining configuration change management rule.

Telnet & SSH protocols can now be used for managing the configurations of Fortigate Version 3.x and VDOM 3.x

New Device Models Support:

Avocent ACS

Juniper WLAN controller

Pravail APS

Avocent Terminal

Cisco ASR Mobile Gateway

Bug Fixes & Changes:

Earlier, when generating a compliance report out of the custom reports, latest configuration data was not taken into account. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, database backup failure status was not properly updated in audit records. This has now been fixed.

When there were multiple SNMP profiles, devices discovery failed often. This has been fixed.

Earlier, in certain specific conditions, EOL report generation threw an error. This has been fixed.

Operators will henceforth not have the privilege to view/edit credentials and credential profiles.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Cisco WLC, Cisco Nexus and Nortel Switches. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Cisco WLAN controllers. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5960)

New Features & Enhancements

SIEM Integration: Provision for sending Syslog messages to SIEM tools upon detecting a configuration change event. SIEM tools can then thoroughly analyze these events,
correlate them with other network events and provide informative, holistic insights on the overall network activity.

Earlier, there were issues in enabling change detection in Huawei Switches. This has been fixed.

Earlier, the Ping option in Add Device GUI was not working. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues with formatting the output of Show commands of HP Switches. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5950)

New Features & Enhancements

Session Recording: TELNET & SSH connections launched to the devices from Network Configuration Manager GUI can now be recorded, archived and played back to support forensic audits and let enterprises monitor all actions performed by users. Session recording caters to the audit and compliance requirements of organizations that mandate proactive monitoring of activities. Administrators can readily answer questions regarding the ‘who,’ ‘what’ and ‘when’ of access to device configurations.

Custom Templates: To enhance the usability of templates, Network Configuration Manager allows you to define 'Template Variables' while creating templates. A template variable is a placeholder for a value, which can be specified when the template is uploaded to the device. Hitherto, there was provision to assign only a single value for the variable. So, when users wanted to apply the template on multiple devices with a different value for each device, the template had to be executed many times. This has now been enhanced with the provision to assign a different value for each device. The values for the template variable for each device can be specified through a text file.

Device Groups: Provision to filter devices in the inventory and create a new device group out of the filtered devices

Bug Fixes / Changes

Javascript warning messages in Internet Explorer with localized versions have been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.8 (Build 5850)

New Features & Enhancements

Support for PostgreSQL as backend database. From this version onwards, the product comes bundled with PostgreSQL 9.2.1.

Provision to enter credentials for multiple devices of a device group that work on a common protocol

Option to duplicate existing compliance rules and save then with a different name

Provision to add one more custom column to depict any desired additional information about devices in device properties.

New Device Models Support:

Crescendo Load Balancers

Welotec Routers

Mikro Tik Routers

Adava ADVA FSP

Bug Fixes / Changes

With MSSQL server as backend database, there were issues in persisting sorting of columns in 'Change Tab'. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in displaying data in custom reports while navigating between pages with using MSSQL server as the backend database. This has been fixed.

Earlier, editing of host names did not work properly in Chrome and Firefox browsers. This has been fixed.

Earlier, when reports were exported as CSV (with MSSQL server as backend database), duplicate entries were found. This has been fixed.

If Active Directory synchronization is enabled, when users get deleted in AD, the same did not get reflected in Network Configuration Manager. Now, the users will be disabled in Network Configuration Manager.

Earlier, there were issues in displaying device configuration content, if it contained HTML tags. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in taking backup of ACME devices. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.8 (Build 5800)

New Features & Enhancements
REST APIs for integration with third-party applications

A set of 10 APIs to enable any third-party application or software integrate with Network Configuration Manager directly and add, access and extract data. The REST APIs also facilitate integrating Network Configuration Manager with enterprise Configuration Management Database (CMDB) for centralized, integrated, holistic and consolidated change control and management.

APIs made available now help perform various tasks, including inventory management (device addition and deletion); configuration backup; compliance status; executing show commands on devices; fetch device properties and executing templates and scripts in Network Configuration Manager that automate repetitive configuration tasks.

Change Management

Option to include configuration change type (authorized or unauthorized) as one of the change management conditions while defining rules. The introduction of this option now makes it possible to get notifications during specific conditions like an unauthorized change happening on the running configuration of a device.

Message Board

Provision for communicating various messages from Network Configuration Manager team to users. Information about product updates and various other notifications will now reach the users directly. Messages can be accessed by clicking the 'Mail icon' on the top-band.

The outputs of various 'Show' Commands and 'Export' configuration can now be saved on machine from which Network Configuration Manager web-interface is launched

Compliance Management

Enhancements in compliance rule definition to check for the presence or absence of specific strings in device configurations as part of 'Advanced Criteria' and 'Advanced Custom Criteria'. Presence or absence of strings can now be checked for specific or unlimited number of occurrences.

Navigation from Home Page

Option to navigate to corresponding pages when viewing various reports in the 'Home' page

New Device Models Support

NEC

Juniper SR

Vyatta

Radware-Alteon Switch

Brocade VDX Switch

Support for Managing Acme Packet devices through SSH

Changes & Bug Fixes

Earlier, Network Configuration Manager (v5700) web-interface session in Internet Explorer was logging out suddenly. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in generating EOL/EOS reports when the connection was going through a proxy. This has been fixed.

Earlier, due to an issue with mail server settings, the from address got truncated when using with MS SQL Server as backend database. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Juniper Ex4200 devices. This has been fixed.

The RegEx pattern that was being used for checking the status of Brocade fast iron switch has been changed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.7 (Build 5700)

New Features and Enhancements

A new tab named 'Change' has been introduced to serve as a quick view of the 'big picture' related to configuration changes in entirety. This comes with convenient date-based filtering options

Provision to view all configuration versions of any particular device on a single click from the device details page

'Configuration Diff' GUI has been enhanced with options to select the version numbers and view changes

Option to launch direct TELNET/SSH connection to the remote devices from Network Configuration Manager web interface. This web-based implementation does not require any tools to be present on local machines and will be highly useful to access remote devices when one is away from office. It does not require VPN too

Device details page has been enhanced with additional tools including ping, traceroute and option to launch HTTP/HTTPS connection to the device. These utilities will come in handy while debugging from remote locations even from tablet devices like ipad

New Device Models Support

F5 BIG-IP 10.x

Cisco IronPort

Blue Coat Proxy with SGOS and AVOS

Bug Fixes / Changes

The number of 'UnManaged devices' will henceforth be excluded from the total number of devices in the system for licensing purpose

Earlier, in certain scenarios, when the product version of Network Configuration Manager in the application and the backend database was different, errors were thrown while working with the product. This has now been fixed in such a way that when the Network Configuration Manager version differs (between application and the backend database), Network Configuration Manager server will not start until the versions are same.

Earlier, there were issues in Network Configuration Manager web-interface when launching FireFox 11/12. This issue has been fixed

EOL home page widget color coding has been revised for logical representation of EOL and other devices through proper colors

Earlier, the link to Device Details page from the 'last 5 configuration changes view' of home page widget did not work. This has been fixed

Earlier, when setting up High Availability, in email settings, if the 'cc' field had been left blank, it resulted in mails not being sent. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5650

New Features and Enhancements

High Availability Architecture: Support for high availability architecture through redundant server instances. This helps ensure uninterrupted access to device configurations and network configuration management activities.

Dashboard Enhancement: End-of-Life (EOL) details of devices are now depicted in the 'Home' page with intuitive graphics

EOL details have been made available in Hardware Inventory Report

New Device Models Support

ZTE

Foundry FastIron

Dell PowerConnect

Brocade 3850 Switch

Cisco ASR Router

Bug Fixes/ Changes

When Network Configuration Manager was running with MS SQL server as backend database, configuration changes report could not be generated as PDF. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues with executing enable command for CheckPointFirewall and Brocade devices. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in showing the configuration difference of Cisco IDS devices. This has been fixed.

Earlier, for some devices, Switch-Port Mapper scan was not showing port and MAC address details properly. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5601

Enhancements

Option to choose IPADDRESS part of the Hardware Inventory Custom Report has been added

Bug Fixes

Earlier, there were issues in generating EOL report while direct internet connection is set in the proxy settings. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were problems in Navigating between pages in the Schedule Result Audit page view while using MSSQL database . This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5600

New Features and Enhancements

New report depicting the End-of-Sale and End-of-Life status of devices

Enhancements in compliance rule definition for checking the presence or absence of a specific strings in device configurations

Option to schedule custom reports and export the report as CSV. Default reports under custom reports category now include two compliance custom reports.

New Device Models Support

AlliedTelesis CenterCom Switch

AlliedTelesis Ethernet Switch

Bug Fixes/ Changes

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Brocade FastIron and Brocade Fibre Switches. This has been fixed

Paging command has been updated for Cisco ASA devices

When Network Configuration Manager was rebranded, the browser title-bar still contained Network Configuration Manager reference. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were problems in deleting SNMP v3 based devices. This has been fixed

Earlier, in Switch Port Mapper, there were issues in fetching ports. This has been fixed

Earlier, in Switch Port Mapper, there were issues in generating PDF reports when MACADDRESS column had not been selected. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5580

New features and enhancements

Option to temporarily disable devices which are in maintenance and enable them again whenever needed

Support for exporting any specific version of the device configuration

Change management rule name can now be added as part of the change notifications

New Device Models Support

Arista Switches

DCN Router

IBM

A10 Networks

Bug Fixes

Earlier, when IP addrsss of the device that underwent configuration change, was not present in the syslog message, Network Configuration Manager initiated recursive configuration backup. This issue has been fixed.

When a user with the role 'Operator' created a change management rule, it got assigned to 'All Devices Group' of administrators. This issue has been fixed.

Issue related to backing up configuration of Juniper EX4200 has been fixed.

Earlier, the Configuration Changes Report, when Emailed, had formatting issues. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5570

New Features and Enhancements

Compliance Reports: Compliance Reports under 'Custom Reports' have been enhanced with the option to generate reports for specific rule, rule group or policy. Option for scheduling the reports is also available

NTLM v2 Support: Earlier, Single SignOn worked only with NTLM-v1. Now, it has been enhanced to work with NTLM-v2 through integration with a third party library, which provides advanced integration between Microsoft Active Directory and Java applications. NTLM v2 is considered more secure as the protocol has been hardened against many spoofing attacks. Refer to this section of our help documentation for details on enabling NTLM v2. For some reason, if you still want to use NTLMv1, contact support to enable it.

Support for configuration backup through SSH protocol in Hirschmann Switch

New Device Models Support

Brocade FastIron Switch and Fiber Switch

Siemens Redback Router

DIGI-Router

Changes/Bug Fixes

In the "Home" page configuration change snapshot, when the changes were marked as Authorized/UnAuthorized repeatedly, an error page was thrown. This has been fixed.

The issues in populating the hardware properties of Alaxala devices have been fixed.

Earlier, Configuration backup of Palo Alto firewall devices did not work. This has been fixed.

When depicting configuration difference between two versions, the content pertaining to the SSL certificates was excluded. This has been enhanced now.

Access to Security Audit Report and Configuration Analysis Report has been restricted to Administrators alone.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5560

New Features & Enhancements

Out-of-the-box policies to check configurations for compliance to SOX and HIPAA regulations

Home Page Dashboard Enhancements

Dashboard now depicts the top five configuration changes in summary view

Summary of the devices whose configurations were backed up and the ones not backed up now depicted in pie-chart

Compliance policy violations shown in summary view

Option to save the custom reports for future reference and also to create scheduled tasks for automatic execution of the custom reports at desired interval

Custom reports can now be created for a specific device or a device group

New Device Models

Acme Packet Firewall

WatchGuard

Canoga Perkins

Bug Fixes & Changes

As part of real-time change detection, when a configuration change is done outside of Network Configuration Manager, there was an issue in printing the the IP address of the user (who changed the configuration) in the annotation column of the backedup configuration information. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, when depicting configuration difference between two versions, the content pertaining to the self-signed SSL certificates was also included. This has been excluded from the diff now

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Fujitsu devices. This has been fixed

The configuration diff viewer has been enhanced with provision for viewing long lines through horizontal scroll bars

By default, Network Configuration Manager collects details pertaining to the usage of the product, including frequency and usage statistics of the various features. This can be disabled or enabled anytime from Support ---> Usage Statistics Collection tab

Network Configuration Manager Build 5520

New Features & Enhancements

Option to specify a particular IP or all IP addresses of an interface to bind TFTP, SSH and SCP servers when Network Configuration Manager is running in multi-homed machines. Same option is provided for transferring configuration files also.

Provision to generate filtered reports out of the Compliance Report to get specific information on compliant rules or violated rules or all rules separately

Enhancements in taking configuration difference for BlueCoat and FortiGate device types wherein the difference pertaining to changes in certificate information are now not taken into account

Support for creating custom templates and scripts to automate configuration tasks pertaining to Cisco Nexus devices

New Device Models Support

Nortel PWR Switch 2526T

Bug Fixes/Changes

Earlier, due to an issue with identifying certificate changes in the configuration, startup and running configurations were marked as having conflict. This issue has been fixed

Earlier, when compliance rules contained certain special characters , the 'edit rule' option did not work properly. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Cisco Nexus and Alcatel devices. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Cisco Firewall 4.x devices. This issue has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5510

New Features & Enhancements

Provision to start and stop TFTP server

While starting the TFTP server, provision to choose a specific IP or all IP addresses to bind

Export configuration feature enhanced with option to maintain all versions

Support for launching Network Configuration Manager web-interface in Google Chrome

Support for installing Network Configuration Manager in Windows 64-bit machines

New Device Models Support

Cisco ASA with WAN support

Cisco FWSM 4.x

FortiNet FortiAnalyzer

Alcatel Service Router

Bug Fixes / Changes

Earlier, there were issues in bulk execution of Switch-Port Mapper in Network Configuration Manager. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in depicting the summary view of custom template execution result. This has been fixed.

The issue related to depicting the configuration difference when multiple certificates were involved in the configuration file, has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in generating reports for the time period "last 7 days". This has been issue fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5500

New Features & Enhancements

Support for MSSQL back-end

Provision for creating scheduled tasks for Device Discovery

Support for additional Syslog message formats for real time change detection for Cisco and Enterasys devices

New Device Models

Sphereon 4500 Fibre Channel Switch

Juniper EX4200 Switch

Allied Telesis AT-8000S Switch

Bug Fixes & Changes

Earlier, when audit trails cleanup operation was in progress, performance issues cropped. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in deleting devices having a large number of configuration versions in Network Configuration Manager. This has been fixed

Issues related to backing up the configurations of Radware devices fixed

User prompt mismatch issues in Cisco Nexus devices fixed

SysLocation population issue for Radware LinkProof switches fixed

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configuration of Citrix NetScaler devices using SCP protocol. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5450

New Features & Enhancements

Provision for viewing the configuration versions of all/any device(s) by specifying a custom date range

Provision to mark configuration changes as authorized/unauthorized in bulk

New Device Models:

Cisco Nexus 7000 10-Slot Switch (N7K-C7010)

Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch (N5K-C5010P-BF)

Motorola Wireless Switch

Blue Coat PacketShaper

HP P series Switch

Radware Link Proof Switch

Alcatel 6200

Fujitsu Switch

Changes & Bug Fixes

Full-fledged population of hardware properties of Nortel Passport 8600 series is now done

Earlier, there were some issues in populating the hardware properties of Radware devices. This issue has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the SSH-based hardware properties of Aruba devices. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in specifying the Additional credential for HP devices. This has now been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5420

Bug Fixes / Changes

Issues related to discovering devices in Vista & Windows 2008 have been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in backingup the configurations of Citrix devices. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in handling Exit prompt in Citrix Hardware population. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in populating MACAddress & SERIALNUMBER for Aruba devices. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5410

New Features / Enhancements

Enhanced configuration changes report with version number details

One more option has been provided for editing the host names of devices in Network Configuration Manager inventory. Users can now update DNS server values and resolve names

Option to specify custom criteria to ignore certain specific lines or text while generating configuration difference between any two versions

Enhancements in Switch-Port Mapper with provision to view all interfaces and their associated interfaces

New Vendors/Models Support:

Alcatel

Netgear (Startup configuraiton included)

Changes/Bug Fixes

Earlier, in Switch-Port Mapper, there were issues in populating ports and MAC Address of Cisco devices. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Alcatel and Citrix devices. This has been fixed.

Issues related to configuration backup of Hitachi Apresia devices have been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in handling Exit prompt in Citrix configuration backup. This has bee fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5400

New Features / Enhancements

Configuration Changes PDF Report has been enhanced to provide information about the authorized and unauthorized changes

For discovering SNMP-enabled devices, Network Configuration Manager requires the SysObject ID of the devices. For certain devices, discovery alone is not supported for want of SysObject ID. Now, provision has been made to enable the users to find and add the SysObject ID of devices from the GUI itself and get discovery support in quick time.

Support for creating scheduled tasks for automatically synchronizing startup and running configurations at specified intervals.

'Power Users' have now been empowered to mark specific configuration changes (pertaining to the devices that are allotted to them) as 'Authorized' or 'UnAuthorized'.

Provision for editing the 'System Description' and 'System Location' details as part of editing device properties

New Vendors/Device Models Support:

Citrix Netscalar

Asperia (Hitachi )

D-Link DES 3052 Switch

Bug Fixes & Changes

Earlier, when scheduled task for configuration backup involving a large number of devices was triggered, 'No Managed connection' issue occurred. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, the time at which interfaces were last scanned by Switch-Port Mapper was wrongly displayed. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, upon performing actions such as 'compliance check' on a device, the time at which configuration backup was triggered on a device, also got changed. This issue has been fixed now

Previously, in the case of Cisco VPN Concentrators, Hardware Inventory Report was not properly generated. This has been fixed now.

In the TFTP sever that comes in-built with Network Configuration Manager, resending of lost or unackowledged packets have now been handled to comply with the TFTP protocol standards

Network Configuration Manager Build 5330

Enhancements, Changes, Bug Fixes

Server side performance improvements to handle concurrent backup of more number of devices

New Device Models Support: Support for Cisco IDS devices and Cisco 1900 series CatOS Switch

Earlier, there were issues in Active Directory based authentication in build 5320. This has been fixed

Earlier, the configuration change reports showed Device Names in the place of Device Type. This has been fixed

In 5320, there were issues in backing up the configuration of H3C devices. This has been fixed

When reports are emailed as a part of reports schedules, if the size of the mail content exceeds 1 MB, only the link for the report will be provided in the email. Actual mail content will be available on the server. This is avoid issues related to email delivery failure due to size restrictions.

Output of switch-port mapping operations (depicting details about the devices connected to each port of the managed switch) is now presented as a report in the "Reports" tab.

Performance Enhancements

Performance tuning has been done to enhance the responsiveness of the Network Configuration Manager GUI for various actions and operations.

New Device Models

Support for D-Link -DGS 3100

Bug Fixes & Changes

Earlier, while populating the hardware details of Cisco WAAS devices, device model information was not populated properly. This is now fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Dell PowerConnect 6248 devices. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of F5 Big IP devices. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, uploading the draft configurations of Nortel Baystack devices did not work. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, there were issues in generating the security audit reports of Netscreen devices. This is now fixed.

The presentation of data in the 'User Access Report' has been changed to depict the details pertaining to the users first and then the details about the devices.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5310

Enhancements, Changes, Bug Fixes

Configuration Management

SSH-based configuration retrieval support is now extended to Nortel Baystack devices.

Configuration upload is now supported for Alaxala devices.

Earlier, there were issues in creating a device group specifying more than one criteria. This has been fixed.

Earlier, information on 'who changed' the configuration was not depicted in the configuration difference screen. Now, it is included.

In Riverbed devices, when paging is enabled, only partial configuration was backedup. This is now fixed.

Network Configuration Manager executes configuration operations such as backup, upload etc as parallel jobs. The number parallel tasks is configurable. When the number was set to 100, server failed to process the operations. This has been fixed.

Compliance Management

Support for testing the validity of a compliance rule created using 'Advanced Custom Criteria'.

Earlier, in 'Advanced Custom Criteria' for compliance rule creation, if the string specified to indicate the starting and ending of the block contained certain special characters, only a part of the configuration was shown in the GUI. This has been fixed now

When Network Configuration Manager contained a huge volume of data pertaining to devices and configuration, the home tab took a long time to load. This has been fixed through performance enhancements.

Switch-Port Mapper Enhancements: Switch-Port mapper now displays more details on MAC-IP matching. Also, the tool has been pruned to ignore non-port details while depicting the mapping.

Earlier, in IE 7, when Single SignOn was enabled and if Network Configuration Manager login failed, it was not possible to login to Network Configuration Manager with any other user name or any other authentication mode. This issue has been fixed now.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5300

New Features / Enhancements

Compliance Policies

In compliance rule definition, option to specify the beginning and the end of the required configuration blocks for selective compliance check. This new feature will help check the required configuration blocks for compliance to the defined criteria. Compliance results for every single interface block will be reported individually, in addition to a unified compliance report for the entire configuration by doing 'AND' of all the individual results.

Support for filtered view of compliance check results. The result view can be filtered based on all compliant rules or all violations.

Switch Port Mapping

Option to create scheduled tasks to periodically scan the switches being managed by Network Configuration Manager and report the the list of devices connected to each port of the managed switch.

Option to generate PDF reports out of the switch port mapping results

Re-branding Support

Support for rebranding Network Configuration Manager web-interface. You can replace the product-specific names and logos with your own details

New Device Models & Vendors

Fortinet Virtual Domain

Vanguard devices

Alaxala 3600, Alaxala 1230

Allied Telesis

Hardware Interface Population

The hardware interface details of Alaxala devices are now populated in the device details page

Changes / Bug Fixes

Earlier, when the time gap between two successive configuration changes was less than two minutes, backup through real-time change detection was not triggered for the second time within that two minute. This is now relaxed and Network Configuration Manager will trigger backups successively.

Earlier, configuration backup through SSH was not working for Cisco VPN Concentrators, Cisco Content Switches & Dell PowerConnect switches. This is now fixed

During every configuration backup, the header of Extreme devices undergo a change. Network Configuration Manager wrongly considered the header change as configuration change and kept backing up and incrementing versions. This is now fixed by ignoring header information while identifying configuration difference.

Earlier, Power Users had the privilege to review and approve the configuration changes made by Operators on any device, if the administrator had designated the Power User as an 'Approving Authority'. Now, even if the Power Users had been designated as 'Approving Authorities', they will be able to approve the changes pertaining to the devices that are already allotted to them only and not of other devices.

Power Users will not have the privilege to associate compliance policies to devices and vice-versa.

Earlier, backup & upload of startup configuration for D-Link DGS 3600 series was not supported, which is supported now.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5210

New Features / Enhancements

Earlier, information on 'who changed' the configuration was captured only when real-time change detection was enabled. Now, the information is captured from 'configuration header' for Cisco devices.

Earlier, Power Users had the privilege to review and approve the configuration changes made by any Operator on any device. Now, 'Administrator' will assign 'Approving Authorities' for every Operator. Only those Power Users who have been designated as approving authorities, will have the privilege to approve the changes made by the respective Operators. However, all users with the role 'Administrator' will have the permission to approve the changes whether they are designated as approving authorities or not. But, they will receive email notification only if they are designated as approving authorities.

Real-time change detection support is extended to Bluecoat devices.

Earlier, backup and upload of startup configuration was not supported for D-Link DGS devices. This is now supported

New Device Models Support

Cisco IOS - XR

Cisco Wide Area Application Service (WAAS)

Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) and

Juniper M-Series Devices

New Vendors Support

H3C

Yamaha Devices ( RT and RTX series)

Changes / Bug Fixes

Earlier, there were issues in connecting to devices via SSH v1. This has been fixed.

Earlier, when a scheduled task for configuration backup was created for a device whose configuration was not backedup at least once prior to creating the schedule, there were issues in executing the schedule. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there was no provision to directly delete synchronization schedule created for synchronizing Activity Directory user database with Network Configuration Manager. Now, separate provision has been made for deleting it.

Earlier, when the DNS name of the host where Network Configuration Manager is running was improper, a blank page appeared when connecting the web-interface. This has been fixed.

During the device discovery or device addition process, device names might not get recorded correctly due to DNS issues. To correct the names, provision was given to edit and update the host names in bulk. Earlier, there were some issues in editing the host names. This has been fixed.

The default inactivity timeout for Network Configuration Manager web-interface has been changed from 30 minutes to four hours. Timeout value is configurable.

Enhancements have been made to the forwarded syslog messages listening feature with provision to specify the list of IP addresses from where syslog messages would be forwarded to Network Configuration Manager for real-time change detection. Previously, Network Configuration Manager expected the syslog message to come directly from the devices that undergo configuration change. With this new feature, syslog messages which get forwarded from a common syslog server (complying to RFC 3164 ) can also be used to detect configuration changes in real-time.

For Netscreen devices, real-time change detection is now done based on more conditions. For example, earlier, cases like forced telnet logout were not considered for change detection. Now, more such conditions are considered.

SSH-based configuration retrieval support is now extended to Cisco ASA and Nortel Passport devices.

Changes

For real-time change detection, when syslog messages were sent from devices, Network Configuration Manager identified the changes only when the exact IP of the device was present. This made real-time change detection not working in devices having multiple interfaces where the message came randomly from one of the interfaces. Now, Network Configuration Manager will look into the interface table of the device and consider all the interfaces.

A few models of Enterasys devices expect carriage return (Ctrl+Y) for logging in. Those type of devices are supported now.

Bug Fixes

Earlier, SSH-based configuration retrieval was not working with Foundry, Extreme and Enterasys devices. It is now fixed.

Earlier, when the entries in Configuration Changes report and Configuration Change Trend report spanned over more than one page, the entries after the first page were not visible. This issue has now been fixed.

In Nortel Baystack devices, configuration retrieval failed due to an issue in populating the hardware properties of the device. This issue has been fixed.

In scheduled configuration backup, the hardware properties of the devices were not updated. This issue has now been fixed.

Earlier, for Aruba devices, there were issues in populating the hardware details. This has been fixed.

In Cisco WLAN controller, configuration backup through TELNET-TFTP did not work. This has been fixed.

Earlier, when generating Configuration Change report as PDF, some entries were missing. This issue has been fixed.

In Widows 2003 and Vista, Network Configuration Manager port check tool showed wrong port status for Syslog service. This has now been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5960)

New Features & Enhancements

SIEM Integration: Provision for sending Syslog messages to SIEM tools upon detecting a configuration change event. SIEM tools can then thoroughly analyze these events,
correlate them with other network events and provide informative, holistic insights on the overall network activity.

Earlier, there were issues in enabling change detection in Huawei Switches. This has been fixed.

Earlier, the Ping option in Add Device GUI was not working. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues with formatting the output of Show commands of HP Switches. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.9 (Build 5950)

New Features & Enhancements

Session Recording: TELNET & SSH connections launched to the devices from Network Configuration Manager GUI can now be recorded, archived and played back to support forensic audits and let enterprises monitor all actions performed by users. Session recording caters to the audit and compliance requirements of organizations that mandate proactive monitoring of activities. Administrators can readily answer questions regarding the ‘who,’ ‘what’ and ‘when’ of access to device configurations.

Custom Templates: To enhance the usability of templates, Network Configuration Manager allows you to define 'Template Variables' while creating templates. A template variable is a placeholder for a value, which can be specified when the template is uploaded to the device. Hitherto, there was provision to assign only a single value for the variable. So, when users wanted to apply the template on multiple devices with a different value for each device, the template had to be executed many times. This has now been enhanced with the provision to assign a different value for each device. The values for the template variable for each device can be specified through a text file.

Device Groups: Provision to filter devices in the inventory and create a new device group out of the filtered devices

Bug Fixes / Changes

Javascript warning messages in Internet Explorer with localized versions have been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.8 (Build 5850)

New Features & Enhancements

Support for PostgreSQL as backend database. From this version onwards, the product comes bundled with PostgreSQL 9.2.1.

Provision to enter credentials for multiple devices of a device group that work on a common protocol

Option to duplicate existing compliance rules and save then with a different name

Provision to add one more custom column to depict any desired additional information about devices in device properties.

New Device Models Support:

Crescendo Load Balancers

Welotec Routers

Mikro Tik Routers

Adava ADVA FSP

Bug Fixes / Changes

With MSSQL server as backend database, there were issues in persisting sorting of columns in 'Change Tab'. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in displaying data in custom reports while navigating between pages with using MSSQL server as the backend database. This has been fixed.

Earlier, editing of host names did not work properly in Chrome and Firefox browsers. This has been fixed.

Earlier, when reports were exported as CSV (with MSSQL server as backend database), duplicate entries were found. This has been fixed.

If Active Directory synchronization is enabled, when users get deleted in AD, the same did not get reflected in Network Configuration Manager. Now, the users will be disabled in Network Configuration Manager.

Earlier, there were issues in displaying device configuration content, if it contained HTML tags. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in taking backup of ACME devices. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.8 (Build 5800)

New Features & Enhancements
REST APIs for integration with third-party applications

A set of 10 APIs to enable any third-party application or software integrate with Network Configuration Manager directly and add, access and extract data. The REST APIs also facilitate integrating Network Configuration Manager with enterprise Configuration Management Database (CMDB) for centralized, integrated, holistic and consolidated change control and management.

APIs made available now help perform various tasks, including inventory management (device addition and deletion); configuration backup; compliance status; executing show commands on devices; fetch device properties and executing templates and scripts in Network Configuration Manager that automate repetitive configuration tasks.

Change Management

Option to include configuration change type (authorized or unauthorized) as one of the change management conditions while defining rules. The introduction of this option now makes it possible to get notifications during specific conditions like an unauthorized change happening on the running configuration of a device.

Message Board

Provision for communicating various messages from Network Configuration Manager team to users. Information about product updates and various other notifications will now reach the users directly. Messages can be accessed by clicking the 'Mail icon' on the top-band.

The outputs of various 'Show' Commands and 'Export' configuration can now be saved on machine from which Network Configuration Manager web-interface is launched

Compliance Management

Enhancements in compliance rule definition to check for the presence or absence of specific strings in device configurations as part of 'Advanced Criteria' and 'Advanced Custom Criteria'. Presence or absence of strings can now be checked for specific or unlimited number of occurrences.

Navigation from Home Page

Option to navigate to corresponding pages when viewing various reports in the 'Home' page

New Device Models Support

NEC

Juniper SR

Vyatta

Radware-Alteon Switch

Brocade VDX Switch

Support for Managing Acme Packet devices through SSH

Changes & Bug Fixes

Earlier, Network Configuration Manager (v5700) web-interface session in Internet Explorer was logging out suddenly. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in generating EOL/EOS reports when the connection was going through a proxy. This has been fixed.

Earlier, due to an issue with mail server settings, the from address got truncated when using with MS SQL Server as backend database. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Juniper Ex4200 devices. This has been fixed.

The RegEx pattern that was being used for checking the status of Brocade fast iron switch has been changed.

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.7 (Build 5700)

New Features and Enhancements

A new tab named 'Change' has been introduced to serve as a quick view of the 'big picture' related to configuration changes in entirety. This comes with convenient date-based filtering options

Provision to view all configuration versions of any particular device on a single click from the device details page

'Configuration Diff' GUI has been enhanced with options to select the version numbers and view changes

Option to launch direct TELNET/SSH connection to the remote devices from Network Configuration Manager web interface. This web-based implementation does not require any tools to be present on local machines and will be highly useful to access remote devices when one is away from office. It does not require VPN too

Device details page has been enhanced with additional tools including ping, traceroute and option to launch HTTP/HTTPS connection to the device. These utilities will come in handy while debugging from remote locations even from tablet devices like ipad

New Device Models Support

F5 BIG-IP 10.x

Cisco IronPort

Blue Coat Proxy with SGOS and AVOS

Bug Fixes / Changes

The number of 'UnManaged devices' will henceforth be excluded from the total number of devices in the system for licensing purpose

Earlier, in certain scenarios, when the product version of Network Configuration Manager in the application and the backend database was different, errors were thrown while working with the product. This has now been fixed in such a way that when the Network Configuration Manager version differs (between application and the backend database), Network Configuration Manager server will not start until the versions are same.

Earlier, there were issues in Network Configuration Manager web-interface when launching FireFox 11/12. This issue has been fixed

EOL home page widget color coding has been revised for logical representation of EOL and other devices through proper colors

Earlier, the link to Device Details page from the 'last 5 configuration changes view' of home page widget did not work. This has been fixed

Earlier, when setting up High Availability, in email settings, if the 'cc' field had been left blank, it resulted in mails not being sent. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5650

New Features and Enhancements

High Availability Architecture: Support for high availability architecture through redundant server instances. This helps ensure uninterrupted access to device configurations and network configuration management activities.

Dashboard Enhancement: End-of-Life (EOL) details of devices are now depicted in the 'Home' page with intuitive graphics

EOL details have been made available in Hardware Inventory Report

New Device Models Support

ZTE

Foundry FastIron

Dell PowerConnect

Brocade 3850 Switch

Cisco ASR Router

Bug Fixes/ Changes

When Network Configuration Manager was running with MS SQL server as backend database, configuration changes report could not be generated as PDF. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues with executing enable command for CheckPointFirewall and Brocade devices. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in showing the configuration difference of Cisco IDS devices. This has been fixed.

Earlier, for some devices, Switch-Port Mapper scan was not showing port and MAC address details properly. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5601

Enhancements

Option to choose IPADDRESS part of the Hardware Inventory Custom Report has been added

Bug Fixes

Earlier, there were issues in generating EOL report while direct internet connection is set in the proxy settings. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were problems in Navigating between pages in the Schedule Result Audit page view while using MSSQL database . This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5600

New Features and Enhancements

New report depicting the End-of-Sale and End-of-Life status of devices

Enhancements in compliance rule definition for checking the presence or absence of a specific strings in device configurations

Option to schedule custom reports and export the report as CSV. Default reports under custom reports category now include two compliance custom reports.

New Device Models Support

AlliedTelesis CenterCom Switch

AlliedTelesis Ethernet Switch

Bug Fixes/ Changes

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Brocade FastIron and Brocade Fibre Switches. This has been fixed

Paging command has been updated for Cisco ASA devices

When Network Configuration Manager was rebranded, the browser title-bar still contained Network Configuration Manager reference. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were problems in deleting SNMP v3 based devices. This has been fixed

Earlier, in Switch Port Mapper, there were issues in fetching ports. This has been fixed

Earlier, in Switch Port Mapper, there were issues in generating PDF reports when MACADDRESS column had not been selected. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5580

New features and enhancements

Option to temporarily disable devices which are in maintenance and enable them again whenever needed

Support for exporting any specific version of the device configuration

Change management rule name can now be added as part of the change notifications

New Device Models Support

Arista Switches

DCN Router

IBM

A10 Networks

Bug Fixes

Earlier, when IP addrsss of the device that underwent configuration change, was not present in the syslog message, Network Configuration Manager initiated recursive configuration backup. This issue has been fixed.

When a user with the role 'Operator' created a change management rule, it got assigned to 'All Devices Group' of administrators. This issue has been fixed.

Issue related to backing up configuration of Juniper EX4200 has been fixed.

Earlier, the Configuration Changes Report, when Emailed, had formatting issues. This has been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5570

New Features and Enhancements

Compliance Reports: Compliance Reports under 'Custom Reports' have been enhanced with the option to generate reports for specific rule, rule group or policy. Option for scheduling the reports is also available

NTLM v2 Support: Earlier, Single SignOn worked only with NTLM-v1. Now, it has been enhanced to work with NTLM-v2 through integration with a third party library, which provides advanced integration between Microsoft Active Directory and Java applications. NTLM v2 is considered more secure as the protocol has been hardened against many spoofing attacks. Refer to this section of our help documentation for details on enabling NTLM v2. For some reason, if you still want to use NTLMv1, contact support to enable it.

Support for configuration backup through SSH protocol in Hirschmann Switch

New Device Models Support

Brocade FastIron Switch and Fiber Switch

Siemens Redback Router

DIGI-Router

Changes/Bug Fixes

In the "Home" page configuration change snapshot, when the changes were marked as Authorized/UnAuthorized repeatedly, an error page was thrown. This has been fixed.

The issues in populating the hardware properties of Alaxala devices have been fixed.

Earlier, Configuration backup of Palo Alto firewall devices did not work. This has been fixed.

When depicting configuration difference between two versions, the content pertaining to the SSL certificates was excluded. This has been enhanced now.

Access to Security Audit Report and Configuration Analysis Report has been restricted to Administrators alone.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5560

New Features & Enhancements

Out-of-the-box policies to check configurations for compliance to SOX and HIPAA regulations

Home Page Dashboard Enhancements

Dashboard now depicts the top five configuration changes in summary view

Summary of the devices whose configurations were backed up and the ones not backed up now depicted in pie-chart

Compliance policy violations shown in summary view

Option to save the custom reports for future reference and also to create scheduled tasks for automatic execution of the custom reports at desired interval

Custom reports can now be created for a specific device or a device group

New Device Models

Acme Packet Firewall

WatchGuard

Canoga Perkins

Bug Fixes & Changes

As part of real-time change detection, when a configuration change is done outside of Network Configuration Manager, there was an issue in printing the the IP address of the user (who changed the configuration) in the annotation column of the backedup configuration information. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, when depicting configuration difference between two versions, the content pertaining to the self-signed SSL certificates was also included. This has been excluded from the diff now

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Fujitsu devices. This has been fixed

The configuration diff viewer has been enhanced with provision for viewing long lines through horizontal scroll bars

By default, Network Configuration Manager collects details pertaining to the usage of the product, including frequency and usage statistics of the various features. This can be disabled or enabled anytime from Support ---> Usage Statistics Collection tab

Network Configuration Manager Build 5520

New Features & Enhancements

Option to specify a particular IP or all IP addresses of an interface to bind TFTP, SSH and SCP servers when Network Configuration Manager is running in multi-homed machines. Same option is provided for transferring configuration files also.

Provision to generate filtered reports out of the Compliance Report to get specific information on compliant rules or violated rules or all rules separately

Enhancements in taking configuration difference for BlueCoat and FortiGate device types wherein the difference pertaining to changes in certificate information are now not taken into account

Support for creating custom templates and scripts to automate configuration tasks pertaining to Cisco Nexus devices

New Device Models Support

Nortel PWR Switch 2526T

Bug Fixes/Changes

Earlier, due to an issue with identifying certificate changes in the configuration, startup and running configurations were marked as having conflict. This issue has been fixed

Earlier, when compliance rules contained certain special characters , the 'edit rule' option did not work properly. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Cisco Nexus and Alcatel devices. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of Cisco Firewall 4.x devices. This issue has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5510

New Features & Enhancements

Provision to start and stop TFTP server

While starting the TFTP server, provision to choose a specific IP or all IP addresses to bind

Export configuration feature enhanced with option to maintain all versions

Support for launching Network Configuration Manager web-interface in Google Chrome

Support for installing Network Configuration Manager in Windows 64-bit machines

New Device Models Support

Cisco ASA with WAN support

Cisco FWSM 4.x

FortiNet FortiAnalyzer

Alcatel Service Router

Bug Fixes / Changes

Earlier, there were issues in bulk execution of Switch-Port Mapper in Network Configuration Manager. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in depicting the summary view of custom template execution result. This has been fixed.

The issue related to depicting the configuration difference when multiple certificates were involved in the configuration file, has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in generating reports for the time period "last 7 days". This has been issue fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5500

New Features & Enhancements

Support for MSSQL back-end

Provision for creating scheduled tasks for Device Discovery

Support for additional Syslog message formats for real time change detection for Cisco and Enterasys devices

New Device Models

Sphereon 4500 Fibre Channel Switch

Juniper EX4200 Switch

Allied Telesis AT-8000S Switch

Bug Fixes & Changes

Earlier, when audit trails cleanup operation was in progress, performance issues cropped. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in deleting devices having a large number of configuration versions in Network Configuration Manager. This has been fixed

Issues related to backing up the configurations of Radware devices fixed

User prompt mismatch issues in Cisco Nexus devices fixed

SysLocation population issue for Radware LinkProof switches fixed

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configuration of Citrix NetScaler devices using SCP protocol. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5450

New Features & Enhancements

Provision for viewing the configuration versions of all/any device(s) by specifying a custom date range

Provision to mark configuration changes as authorized/unauthorized in bulk

New Device Models:

Cisco Nexus 7000 10-Slot Switch (N7K-C7010)

Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch (N5K-C5010P-BF)

Motorola Wireless Switch

Blue Coat PacketShaper

HP P series Switch

Radware Link Proof Switch

Alcatel 6200

Fujitsu Switch

Changes & Bug Fixes

Full-fledged population of hardware properties of Nortel Passport 8600 series is now done

Earlier, there were some issues in populating the hardware properties of Radware devices. This issue has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the SSH-based hardware properties of Aruba devices. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in specifying the Additional credential for HP devices. This has now been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5420

Bug Fixes / Changes

Issues related to discovering devices in Vista & Windows 2008 have been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in backingup the configurations of Citrix devices. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in handling Exit prompt in Citrix Hardware population. This has been fixed

Earlier, there were issues in populating MACAddress & SERIALNUMBER for Aruba devices. This has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Build 5410

New Features / Enhancements

Enhanced configuration changes report with version number details

One more option has been provided for editing the host names of devices in Network Configuration Manager inventory. Users can now update DNS server values and resolve names

Option to specify custom criteria to ignore certain specific lines or text while generating configuration difference between any two versions

Enhancements in Switch-Port Mapper with provision to view all interfaces and their associated interfaces

New Vendors/Models Support:

Alcatel

Netgear (Startup configuraiton included)

Changes/Bug Fixes

Earlier, in Switch-Port Mapper, there were issues in populating ports and MAC Address of Cisco devices. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Alcatel and Citrix devices. This has been fixed.

Issues related to configuration backup of Hitachi Apresia devices have been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in handling Exit prompt in Citrix configuration backup. This has bee fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5400

New Features / Enhancements

Configuration Changes PDF Report has been enhanced to provide information about the authorized and unauthorized changes

For discovering SNMP-enabled devices, Network Configuration Manager requires the SysObject ID of the devices. For certain devices, discovery alone is not supported for want of SysObject ID. Now, provision has been made to enable the users to find and add the SysObject ID of devices from the GUI itself and get discovery support in quick time.

Support for creating scheduled tasks for automatically synchronizing startup and running configurations at specified intervals.

'Power Users' have now been empowered to mark specific configuration changes (pertaining to the devices that are allotted to them) as 'Authorized' or 'UnAuthorized'.

Provision for editing the 'System Description' and 'System Location' details as part of editing device properties

New Vendors/Device Models Support:

Citrix Netscalar

Asperia (Hitachi )

D-Link DES 3052 Switch

Bug Fixes & Changes

Earlier, when scheduled task for configuration backup involving a large number of devices was triggered, 'No Managed connection' issue occurred. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, the time at which interfaces were last scanned by Switch-Port Mapper was wrongly displayed. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, upon performing actions such as 'compliance check' on a device, the time at which configuration backup was triggered on a device, also got changed. This issue has been fixed now

Previously, in the case of Cisco VPN Concentrators, Hardware Inventory Report was not properly generated. This has been fixed now.

In the TFTP sever that comes in-built with Network Configuration Manager, resending of lost or unackowledged packets have now been handled to comply with the TFTP protocol standards

Network Configuration Manager Build 5330

Enhancements, Changes, Bug Fixes

Server side performance improvements to handle concurrent backup of more number of devices

New Device Models Support: Support for Cisco IDS devices and Cisco 1900 series CatOS Switch

Earlier, there were issues in Active Directory based authentication in build 5320. This has been fixed

Earlier, the configuration change reports showed Device Names in the place of Device Type. This has been fixed

In 5320, there were issues in backing up the configuration of H3C devices. This has been fixed

When reports are emailed as a part of reports schedules, if the size of the mail content exceeds 1 MB, only the link for the report will be provided in the email. Actual mail content will be available on the server. This is avoid issues related to email delivery failure due to size restrictions.

Output of switch-port mapping operations (depicting details about the devices connected to each port of the managed switch) is now presented as a report in the "Reports" tab.

Performance Enhancements

Performance tuning has been done to enhance the responsiveness of the Network Configuration Manager GUI for various actions and operations.

New Device Models

Support for D-Link -DGS 3100

Bug Fixes & Changes

Earlier, while populating the hardware details of Cisco WAAS devices, device model information was not populated properly. This is now fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in populating the hardware properties of Dell PowerConnect 6248 devices. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there were issues in backing up the configurations of F5 Big IP devices. This has now been fixed.

Earlier, uploading the draft configurations of Nortel Baystack devices did not work. This has been fixed now.

Earlier, there were issues in generating the security audit reports of Netscreen devices. This is now fixed.

The presentation of data in the 'User Access Report' has been changed to depict the details pertaining to the users first and then the details about the devices.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5310

Enhancements, Changes, Bug Fixes

Configuration Management

SSH-based configuration retrieval support is now extended to Nortel Baystack devices.

Configuration upload is now supported for Alaxala devices.

Earlier, there were issues in creating a device group specifying more than one criteria. This has been fixed.

Earlier, information on 'who changed' the configuration was not depicted in the configuration difference screen. Now, it is included.

In Riverbed devices, when paging is enabled, only partial configuration was backedup. This is now fixed.

Network Configuration Manager executes configuration operations such as backup, upload etc as parallel jobs. The number parallel tasks is configurable. When the number was set to 100, server failed to process the operations. This has been fixed.

Compliance Management

Support for testing the validity of a compliance rule created using 'Advanced Custom Criteria'.

Earlier, in 'Advanced Custom Criteria' for compliance rule creation, if the string specified to indicate the starting and ending of the block contained certain special characters, only a part of the configuration was shown in the GUI. This has been fixed now

When Network Configuration Manager contained a huge volume of data pertaining to devices and configuration, the home tab took a long time to load. This has been fixed through performance enhancements.

Switch-Port Mapper Enhancements: Switch-Port mapper now displays more details on MAC-IP matching. Also, the tool has been pruned to ignore non-port details while depicting the mapping.

Earlier, in IE 7, when Single SignOn was enabled and if Network Configuration Manager login failed, it was not possible to login to Network Configuration Manager with any other user name or any other authentication mode. This issue has been fixed now.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5300

New Features / Enhancements

Compliance Policies

In compliance rule definition, option to specify the beginning and the end of the required configuration blocks for selective compliance check. This new feature will help check the required configuration blocks for compliance to the defined criteria. Compliance results for every single interface block will be reported individually, in addition to a unified compliance report for the entire configuration by doing 'AND' of all the individual results.

Support for filtered view of compliance check results. The result view can be filtered based on all compliant rules or all violations.

Switch Port Mapping

Option to create scheduled tasks to periodically scan the switches being managed by Network Configuration Manager and report the the list of devices connected to each port of the managed switch.

Option to generate PDF reports out of the switch port mapping results

Re-branding Support

Support for rebranding Network Configuration Manager web-interface. You can replace the product-specific names and logos with your own details

New Device Models & Vendors

Fortinet Virtual Domain

Vanguard devices

Alaxala 3600, Alaxala 1230

Allied Telesis

Hardware Interface Population

The hardware interface details of Alaxala devices are now populated in the device details page

Changes / Bug Fixes

Earlier, when the time gap between two successive configuration changes was less than two minutes, backup through real-time change detection was not triggered for the second time within that two minute. This is now relaxed and Network Configuration Manager will trigger backups successively.

Earlier, configuration backup through SSH was not working for Cisco VPN Concentrators, Cisco Content Switches & Dell PowerConnect switches. This is now fixed

During every configuration backup, the header of Extreme devices undergo a change. Network Configuration Manager wrongly considered the header change as configuration change and kept backing up and incrementing versions. This is now fixed by ignoring header information while identifying configuration difference.

Earlier, Power Users had the privilege to review and approve the configuration changes made by Operators on any device, if the administrator had designated the Power User as an 'Approving Authority'. Now, even if the Power Users had been designated as 'Approving Authorities', they will be able to approve the changes pertaining to the devices that are already allotted to them only and not of other devices.

Power Users will not have the privilege to associate compliance policies to devices and vice-versa.

Earlier, backup & upload of startup configuration for D-Link DGS 3600 series was not supported, which is supported now.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5210

New Features / Enhancements

Earlier, information on 'who changed' the configuration was captured only when real-time change detection was enabled. Now, the information is captured from 'configuration header' for Cisco devices.

Earlier, Power Users had the privilege to review and approve the configuration changes made by any Operator on any device. Now, 'Administrator' will assign 'Approving Authorities' for every Operator. Only those Power Users who have been designated as approving authorities, will have the privilege to approve the changes made by the respective Operators. However, all users with the role 'Administrator' will have the permission to approve the changes whether they are designated as approving authorities or not. But, they will receive email notification only if they are designated as approving authorities.

Real-time change detection support is extended to Bluecoat devices.

Earlier, backup and upload of startup configuration was not supported for D-Link DGS devices. This is now supported

New Device Models Support

Cisco IOS - XR

Cisco Wide Area Application Service (WAAS)

Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) and

Juniper M-Series Devices

New Vendors Support

H3C

Yamaha Devices ( RT and RTX series)

Changes / Bug Fixes

Earlier, there were issues in connecting to devices via SSH v1. This has been fixed.

Earlier, when a scheduled task for configuration backup was created for a device whose configuration was not backedup at least once prior to creating the schedule, there were issues in executing the schedule. This has been fixed.

Earlier, there was no provision to directly delete synchronization schedule created for synchronizing Activity Directory user database with Network Configuration Manager. Now, separate provision has been made for deleting it.

Earlier, when the DNS name of the host where Network Configuration Manager is running was improper, a blank page appeared when connecting the web-interface. This has been fixed.

During the device discovery or device addition process, device names might not get recorded correctly due to DNS issues. To correct the names, provision was given to edit and update the host names in bulk. Earlier, there were some issues in editing the host names. This has been fixed.

The default inactivity timeout for Network Configuration Manager web-interface has been changed from 30 minutes to four hours. Timeout value is configurable.

Enhancements have been made to the forwarded syslog messages listening feature with provision to specify the list of IP addresses from where syslog messages would be forwarded to Network Configuration Manager for real-time change detection. Previously, Network Configuration Manager expected the syslog message to come directly from the devices that undergo configuration change. With this new feature, syslog messages which get forwarded from a common syslog server (complying to RFC 3164 ) can also be used to detect configuration changes in real-time.

For Netscreen devices, real-time change detection is now done based on more conditions. For example, earlier, cases like forced telnet logout were not considered for change detection. Now, more such conditions are considered.

SSH-based configuration retrieval support is now extended to Cisco ASA and Nortel Passport devices.

Changes

For real-time change detection, when syslog messages were sent from devices, Network Configuration Manager identified the changes only when the exact IP of the device was present. This made real-time change detection not working in devices having multiple interfaces where the message came randomly from one of the interfaces. Now, Network Configuration Manager will look into the interface table of the device and consider all the interfaces.

A few models of Enterasys devices expect carriage return (Ctrl+Y) for logging in. Those type of devices are supported now.

Bug Fixes

Earlier, SSH-based configuration retrieval was not working with Foundry, Extreme and Enterasys devices. It is now fixed.

Earlier, when the entries in Configuration Changes report and Configuration Change Trend report spanned over more than one page, the entries after the first page were not visible. This issue has now been fixed.

In Nortel Baystack devices, configuration retrieval failed due to an issue in populating the hardware properties of the device. This issue has been fixed.

In scheduled configuration backup, the hardware properties of the devices were not updated. This issue has now been fixed.

Earlier, for Aruba devices, there were issues in populating the hardware details. This has been fixed.

In Cisco WLAN controller, configuration backup through TELNET-TFTP did not work. This has been fixed.

Earlier, when generating Configuration Change report as PDF, some entries were missing. This issue has been fixed.

In Widows 2003 and Vista, Network Configuration Manager port check tool showed wrong port status for Syslog service. This has now been fixed.

Network Configuration Manager Build 5110

New Features / Enhancements

Support for retrieving the configurations of Netscreen firewalls through SSH or TELNET without using TFTP

Switch Port Mapper: New functionality, which identifies the list of devices connected to each port of the managed switch. This eliminates the need for manually maintaining a record on port details and connected devices.

Provision for editing and updating host names of devices in bulk. During the device discovery or device addition process, device names might not get recorded correctly due to DNS issues. This can be corrected later by updating hostnames in bulk by providing the list of host names in a standard flat file

Provision to listen for syslog messages from a central syslog server for use in real-time change detection. Previously, Network Configuration Manager expected the syslog message to come directly from the devices that undergo configuration change. With this new feature, syslog messages which get forwarded from a common syslog server (complying to RFC 3164 ) can also be used to detect configuration changes in real-time

Support for Nortel Baystack Switch which can login to command line mode directly

Changes

Earlier, the execution output of custom templates were visible to all users. As this feature is widely used to carryout critical configuration changes like password rotation, firewall rule configuration etc. Network Configuration Manager now provides the option for removing the execution output. In addition, execution output will be visible only to the administrator and the user who executes the custom template

Configuration retrieval/upload over SCP is now supported for Cisco switches and Brocade devices also.

Bug Fixes

When a Network Configuration Manager user was deleted, both public and private groups created by the user got deleted. Now, the issue has been fixed and only the private groups held by the user willget deleted.

The issue related to sending notification on scheduled backup failure, has been fixed

After enabling Single SignOn, when an administrator/power user logged into Network Configuration Manager, the user role was taken as 'Operator' for all. This issue has now been fixed to reflect the exact role of the user

While retrieving configuration over SCP in Cisco routers, startup configuration was displayed as running. This issue has been fixed

The issue related to real-time change detection in Netscreen firewalls, has been fixed

Network Configuration Manager Release 5.1

New Features / Enhancements

Configuration files transfer

SCP protocol is now supported for Cisco devices to securely transfer configuration files from and to Network Configuration Manager

Support for SSH-based configuration backup for Cisco devices without the use of TFTP. Network Configuration Manager will establish communication with the device via SSH and execute respective 'show config' commands to retrieve configuration

The authentication mechanism provided by AD, LDAP and RADIUS can be leveraged in Network Configuration Manager for user authentication

Advanced script execution for automation

Advanced scripts execution for automatically executing a series of inter-connected commands on a device in command line.

Support for firmware upgrade/OS image upload & many other complex command executions through advanced script execution

Option to skip pre and post configuration backup operations while executing custom templates. This will be useful to execute commands which make the device to go out of network

Schedules

Custom template execution can now be scheduled to be executed at any time. This will be useful for achieving better automation of configuration tasks

Database Backup

The destination directory for storing the backed up contents of Network Configuration Manager database is now configurable

The destination directory where exported configuration files are stored, is now configurable

Configuration Upload Approval

When administrators have configuration upload requests pending for their approval, alerts would be displayed in the Home page of the Network Configuration Manager GUI

Support for New Devices/Models

Alaxala devices

Bug Fixes / Changes

When Network Configuration Manager GUI is left unattended for 30 minutes, the client session will be logged out. This default timeout value (30 mins) is configurable. Earlier, timeout was infinite and hence session did not end automatically

Change Management notification emails will henceforth include the annotation information also. So the reason for change will also be found

It is now possible to label the 'configuration change authorization status' of any configuration as 'authorized' or 'unauthorized'. It can be done from 'Change Trend Report' from 'Home' tab or from the respective configuration details page

Network Configuration Manager users with the roles PowerUser and Operator will not be able to view the scheduled tasks created by others users. Also, they will not be able to view the audit records pertaining to the schedules created by others

Support for synchronizing the running and startup configurations in bulk for many devices. Ealier, the bulk operation was not possible

Earlier, the custom templates could not be used for changing the passwords of Extreme Summit and HP devices. Now, the password change could be done in bulk using the advanced script execution feature

Earlier, the custom templates could not be used for executing the command for configuring the banner message of Cisco devices. This is now possible through the advanced script execution feature

Network Configuration Manager Build 5020

New Features / Enhancements

Configuration Diff reports have been enhanced to display more lines along with diff lines to better understand the "context" of the configuration change.

Detailed DeviceConfiguration and SecurityAudit report is now provided for each device. DeviceConfiguration Report gives details about configuration settings and SecurityAudit Report identifies security related issues and recommendations to resolve it.

Navigation improvements in "Device Details" and "Device Group" pages.

Report generation time will be displayed for reports sent via email for Scheduled Configuration Backup and Configuration Change notifications.

New Devices Support

Support for the following new device types:

Riverbed Steelhead

Alcatel switch

Huawei Quidway AR 18xx

More HP Switch and DLink Switch models are now supported.

Bug Fixes

Build 5010 had issues in scheduled configuration backup with larger number of devices. This has been fixed.

Hardware details such as Serial Number, IOS Version, OS Image Name are depicted in reports

Support for scheduling report generation at periodic interval and emailing the same to required recipients

Provision to export reports in CSV format

Integration with ManageEngine OpManager

Network Configuration Manager can be integrated with ManageEngine OpManager (Network Monitoring Software). Device configurations can now be managed from the 'Device Details' page of OpManager

Device Groups

Provision for creating 'Public Groups', which are visible to all users

Provision for creating Device Groups based on more fine-grained criteria

Change Management

Option to receive Change Management Notification emails in a text format to facilitate better viewing in hand-held devices such as mobile phones.

User Management

Provision to assign public device groups to users (belonging to the roles PowerUser, Operator)

Backup Schedules

Option to receive emails only for error conditions in backup schedules.

TFTP interface configuration in multi-homed machines

Network Configuration Manager uses TFTP server to transfer the configuration files to-and-fro the devices. Provision for specifying the interface to be used for transferring the configuration files from/to the devices, if Network Configuration Manager is running in multi-homed machines.

Syslog interface configuration in multi-homed machines

Syslog server is used for real-time change detection. It binds its syslog listener at port 514. In multi-homed machines, if you want to run some other application with a syslog server in the same machine, you can bind the Network Configuration Manager syslog server to a specific interface leaving the other interface(s) for use by other application(s).

Specifying the count for parallel jobs

Network Configuration Manager executes configuration operations such as backup, upload, scheduled task execution, report generation etc as parallel jobs. The number of threads available for such parallel tasks are limited. Provision for specifying the number of parallel jobs depending on the hardware configuration of the machine in which Network Configuration Manager is running.

Performance Tuning

Performance tuning has been done to improve client responsiveness for various configuration operations & scheduled tasks.

Automatic Device Model Support

Automatic support for device models that are similar to the already supported models. This is due to the removal of model-specific device support.

Changes

Ready-to-use custom templates (Syslog configuration, SNMP Configuration & Password configuration) will be removed in the next major upgrade as more powerful scripting functionality has been added

Network Configuration Manager Build 4210

Feature Enhancements

Device Discovery

1. Nmap based Discovery: Device Discovery has been enhanced with Nmap-based discovery, which offers a host of advantages over the existing process. Earlier, when running Network Configuration Manager in non-English OS, ping for device would fail during discovery, resulting in disruption of discovery process. Now, with Nmap-based discovery, all such issues have been addressed.

2. Stopping Discovery: Provision to stop device discovery, at any point of time during the discovery process.

3. DNS Name in Discovery status: While viewing the discovery status of specific devices, the DNS Name of the device is also displayed.

4. Discovery support for most of the models: Most of the device models that are supported by Network Configuration Manager could now be discovered and added to the inventory. Refer supported device models page for more details.

Configuration Diff

In the contextual, side-by-side comparison of configuration versions, option has been provided to view only the lines in which there is a difference. Navigation buttons have also been provided to move from one diff line to the next easily.

Changes

Terminologies

The term 'Download' which was being used to denote the transfer of configuration from Network Configuration Manager to the device, has been changed to 'Upload' to adhere to industry standard terms. Henceforth, the following terminologies would be consistently used:

* Backup denoting retrieval of current configuration from device and transfer of the same to Network Configuration Manager

* Upload denoting the transfer of the configuration from Network Configuration Manager to the device

ResultHandler

The 'ResultHandler' feature has been removed. A more powerful Change Management feature was added in the previous release (4200) itself.

(1) Earlier, for device discovery only two options were available - discovering specific devices or the devices falling under a specific IP range in bulk. Now, option is provided to discover multiple devices by importing hostnames or ip addresses from a file at one go.

(2) Option to generate trouble tickets to Help Desk upon change detection

Device Inventory

IP address of device is displayed in the inventory table for easy reference. It is added as an additional column in inventory table, not listed by default. (Go to the column chooser to list this as a column in the table)

Reports

Network inventory report has been enhanced with display of more hardware details

Changes

Configuration Diff

While taking configuration diff, difference due to comments will be ignored henceforth

GUI Enhancements

The default theme of Network Configuration Manager GUI has been changed to blue from green. The previous green theme has been made optional. Minor changes in GUI have been made for ease of navigation and improved usability

Editing Device Details

Option is provided for changing model number and series of a device from the Device Details page

SSH Support for additional models

SSH support for Cisco ASA models

ResultHandler

Since a more powerful Change Management feature has been added in this release, the "Result Handler" feature will be removed in the next release

Previously, Device Groups could not be deleted even if not referred in other places. This is now fixed.

The issue with regard Telneting to a PIX device from Device Properties page of Network Configuration Manager has now been fixed.

Hitherto, daily schedules were not getting rescheduled at the end of every month. This is now fixed.

Previously, in the case of cisco devices going into enable login mode directly, there was a restriction that host name needed to be given in prompt, enable password prompt and enable prompt. This restriction has been removed now.

Support for 10 more device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, access servers, integrated access devices and others from multi-vendors. Network Configuration Manager supports a total of 160 device models at present.

Support for 50 more device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, access servers, integrated access devices and others from multi-vendors. Network Configuration Manager supports a total of 150 device models at present.

New Vendor Support

Support for four more vendors such as Nortel, D-Link, ADTRAN and Enterasys. Network Configuration Manager already supports Cisco, HP, 3COM, Juniper NetScreen, Foundry and Fortinet.

SSH Support

Configuration operations through SSH for all cisco pix models and FortiGate models.

Discovery Status Tracking

Support for tracking the status of device discovery. Progress of discovery in terms of percentage of completion and finally the result can now be tracked.

Option to test the validity of Credentials

Testing option is provided to find the correctness of device credential details. After entering the credentials, when test option is invoked, Network Configuration Manager will pinpoint the valid and invalid values.

Bug Fixes

Earlier, when a device discovery attempt failed, manual addition of the device to the inventory also failed due to incomplete cleanup of residual data pertaining to the discovery of unsupported models. This issue has now been fixed.

Previously if the IP address of the machine got changed in subsequent restart of the server, Network Configuration Manager had to be reinitialized and started afresh. It is not required now.

Network Configuration Manager Build 4010

Features

Support for more than 100 device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, integrated access devices and others from vendors like Cisco, HP, 3COM, Foundry, NetScreen, FortiGate etc.,

Support for Cisco devices with CatOS

Capturing username and IP address when someone opens a telnet console and directly carries out a configuration change to Cisco IOS switches and routers, as part of enhancements in real-time change detection

Provision for copying running configuration as startup in bulk

Bug Fixes

Residual data from the discovery of unsupported models are now cleaned up properly

Hitherto, copying running configuration to startup did not work in SNMP-TFTP protocol mode. This issue has now been fixed

While using credential profiles, when independent update of the profile values was carried out, sometimes, the changes did not reflect in the credentials used for the device. This issue has now been fixed